Mexico is by no means the only country in the region with a take-em-or-leave-em attitude about books. But there’s some pretty good evidence that the reading crisis (if we can call it that) is more acute here. A Congressional report released last spring lamented that as much as 43 percent of Mexican bookstores have closed in the last decade, leaving the country with one book store for every 250,000 inhabitants.

Argentina, by comparison, has one for every 15,000 residents while Spain has one for every 12,000.

What Mexico does have, though, is one heck of a lot of book fairs. One of the biggest and best, second perhaps only to Guadalajara’s prestigious International Book Fair, is in the middle of its run in Mexico City’s Historic Center.

Organized by the Mexican National Autonomous University (UNAM), the XXVIII Feria Internacional del Libro del Palacio de Minería is a dazzling affair that delivers the intended effect of exciting visitors about the possibilities inherent in the written word and instilling a mischievous desire to drop everything and read for the rest of the year.

There’s also a visual pleasure in just being there, something not usually expected in what in many ways is a glorified trade convention, with booths and tables and cubicle-like makeshift space separators. But a collection of tens of thousands of multi-colored book covers set among the stone-walled and floored spaces of the stately, circa-1900, faux-classical old mining studies seminary building exerts its own aesthetic pull.

The sheer number of publications on display (and on sale) is invigorating and confusing. Are there really that many studies or trees and wildlife in the different regions of Mexico? How many books has Carlos Monsiváis written, anyway?

Even if Mexicans were the most avid readers in the world, how could there ever be enough pairs of eyes for all these poets, novelists, researchers and journalists to get read?

And where are all these books when they’re not on display?

The fair itself, which began on February 22 and ends March 4, helps deal with that last question. As in many bookstores, the selections are arranged by publisher, not subject. The people who man the booths usually can help you pin down where to go or whom to contact when you are interested in a certain book. The catalogues and other materials they sometimes hand out gratis can be handy as well.

But the worst mistake a book fair visitor can make is to tour the site as though it were a temporary book mall. True, it looks like one on the surface, and if you want to go shopping for books, this is your place. But browsing and buying are a small part of the menu. The fair is about books, but also about their content, and the authors who wrote them. Chats, presentations, panels and readings abound, and they’re all free with the price of admission (15 pesos, less than a buck fifty).

More than 800 of these enriching events were scheduled. If you’re reading this today, Feb. 26, more than half of them have yet to take place.

For example, you’ve missed The Herald Mexico contributors Dan Lund and Susannah Glusker discussing the latter’s intellectual biography of her mother, Anita Brenner, who wrote “Idols Behind Altars,” “Your Mexican Holiday,” and “ The Wind That Swept Mexico.” Monsiváis, who wrote the preface, also was scheduled to participate in the discussion.

But you can still catch on Saturday, March 3, at 11 a.m. the brilliant feminist Martha Lamas and the equally brilliant scholar and EL UNVIERSAL columnist Sara Sefchovich talk about the former’s new book “Feminism.”

Many of the panel discussions deal with now deceased writers specially featured during the fair, including the Chilean Gabriel Mistral, the Polish-British Joseph Conrad and the Mexicans Juan Rulfo, Elena Garro and Carlos Pellicer.

A detailed schedule of all these goings-on is at the fairs web site, which is http://feria.mineria.unam.mx. There is an English-language option on the site, but it is far less complete than the Spanish version.

Which brings us to a concern that is no doubt on the minds of a certain percentage of readers of this column: What if your Spanish is shaky, or close to non-existent. What’s in this fair for you?

Not much, sad to report. Your intrepid correspondent combed the ample venue tirelessly and found next to nothing in English or any other language other than Spanish. The word “International” in the fair’s title is geographically true — publishers from several Latin American and European countries are represented — but linguistically misleading.

Some of the photo-packed coffee-table type books are bilingual in Spanish and English or all in English, especially some very beautiful architecture studies from the Spanish publisher Hispánica de Bibliofilia. At the Oxford University Press booth there are English-language books (Dickens and the like) that come with CD’s to listen along with, but they’re seriously abridged and clearly meant for intermediate-level English learners.

There are many educational publishers that offer language-learning books and CD-ROMs, for English and other languages. Larrouse has a nice selection of Spanish-English dictionaries, along with some English-English dictionaries, such as the Chambers.

There are several publishers with selections in Náhuatl and Mayan, some of them bilingual and most of them children’s books. Tucked in one out-of-the-way corner is a Canadian publisher offering wonderful bilingual (French-Spanish) editions of Mexican poets such as Coral Bacho and Francophone Canadian writers.

The guy manning the Communist literature booth speaks English, and many of the tracts are in English. And, surprisingly but most welcome, the Supreme Court has a booth that offers English versions of the Mexican Constitution and some major laws.

Other than that it’s all Spanish, including the talks.

But I still recommend that non-Spanish-speakers spend a few hours at the Book Fair. It can be inspiring to see what you’re missing, and will be able to appreciate with a little sustained effort. Beginners can try their hand at some children’s books -most of which are wonderful, by the way. Browse the language-learning booths. There CDs and DVDs as well as books, musical performances scattered throughout each day, arts and craftworks to buy, and an all-around festive atmosphere.

It’s also a fine excuse to tour the Palacio de Minería, a must-see if you’ve never entered. In the entranceway, you can touch a 14,000-kilo meteorite that plunged into the state of Chihuahua way back when. And when you’ve had enough, you can cross the street to the National Art Museum (Munal), where a sizable chunk of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art collection has temporarily joined the permanent displays.

kelly.garrett@eluniversal.com.mx